On Valentine’s Evening—February 2010, 8 months after I was engaged, my fiance and I decided, over Valentine’s dinner, that we would do something crazy and outside of our comfort zones to celebrate our marriage. Our wedding was planned for the end of August and with the summer waning, we decided to go on a pre-wedding Honeymoon. We knew an island destination was the norm—Hawaii, St. Lucia, etc. Yet, we decided that night that we were going to take this once-in-a-life time opportunity to travel somewhere exotic and daring. We wanted to do something different, go somewhere atypical and accomplish something that we would look back on and tell stories about when we were old and grey.

We opted out of beaches and umbrella drinks and instead, we decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro—19,340 foot tall Kilimanjaro which straddles the border between Tanzania and Kenya. If we could climb a mountain together…the wedding would be a cinch!

While I expected and hoped this trip to Africa would provide us with a phenomenial experience and a lifetime of memories, I hadn’t fully anticipated the things that I would learn about myself on this adventure. I oftentimes think that amazing experiences such as this one offer us an opportunity to slow down, unplug and take in our surroundings. This is something I believe often gets overlooked as we ALL can get so EASILY caught up in the hustle and bustle OF OUR day-to-day tasks and ‘to-do’s’ of life.

The big take away that came unexpectedly for me was not everything in life is up for 'winning' or 'besting' --something that had almost become pre-programmed within me. As a former College athlete, I had always coupled success with being the FITTEST, THE FASTEST or the FIRST. On this enormous mountain, though, it was made abundantly clear that was not going to be the case.

We travelled to Africa by way of Amsterdam and spent the first 5 days of our trip on safari in the Serengeti and Ngaruroro Crater. As one would expect, the sights of the spectacular African landscape with the countless zebras, giraffes, lions, elephants and wildabeast where breath-taking. Once the safari was completed, we hopped in a van and drove 7 hours from Arusha to Moshi. Moshi was a small town in the north of the country, whose economy rested primarily on adventure tourism.

We arrived at our Spartan hotel later in the evening. In addition to missing dinner, the electricity and warm-water supply at the hotel were infrequent at best. Given is was night time, the lack of light made it difficult as we packed and re-packed our gear with the help of our headlamps. Things weren’t going as well as we had planned.

At 6:30am, we gathered in the hotel courtyard with 40 other climbers who had travelled from all over the world. In the dim light of the morning, one could see the imposing outline of Kilimanjaro slowing taking shape in the distance. It was shrowded in mystery, adventure and clouds. As our eyes gazed upwards, it seemed to go on, upward, forever?

As Andrew (my fiancé) and I prepared to jump into the “roomy” white mini-van that would transport us and 40 other climbers to the base of Kilimanjaro, one last passenger ran into the courtyard of the hotel. His plane from Riyadh had been delayed and he barely made it before we departed. While he lived and worked in Saudi Arabia, it turned out that the 3rd member of our group also hailed from our hometown, Toronto. What were the chances? We were now a trio of Canadians from Toronto which was pretty cool!

We arrived at the entrance to Kilimanjaro National Park and proceeded to the office where we did all of the necessary housekeeping—signing in, paying our park fees, coordinating our night stays and, most importantly, meeting our two guides. It was immediately evident after a brief introduction that we had lucked out by snagging two of the most experienced guides on the mountain.

The first, Polizi, so named because of his affinity for rule following and attention to detail… and Jackson—his quirky side-kick. We also had a support team that was almost embarrassing for a climbing group of three. Tanzania mandates that teams of 3 to 8 hikers need 7 support staff. We not only had two guides but we also signed on a junior guide, a cook and 4 porters. Our porters carried everything we needed for five days on a mountain minus our personal packs. I’m not kidding you when I say that one strong young man carried an entire portable stove on his back, barefoot, at double our pace so he could set-up and prep for our arrival at the next stop as we made our way up the mountain.

….An hour later, we completed all of the necessary paperwork and pre-climb checks and we were cleared to get underway. Like a sprinter in the starting blocks, I was ready to go! I knew the likelihood of setting a record for climbing the mountain was probably a long shot, but... hey!

At the base, the terrain and slope of the mountain were underwhelming to say the least. As a result, Andrew and I started at a brisk pace. It didn’t take long until we were quickly halted by Polizi. He looked at us, shook his head and wagged his finger—he said nothing, but we knew what he was saying...“What the heck are you guys doing?” While Polizi appreciated our enthusiasm, he motioned for us to follow behind as he would set the pace. While an early blow to my ego, and my record-setting time, we figured we better play ball at least early in the trip. Only a short half-hour later Polizi stopped and told us to drop our packs and rest. A rest!? We’d only been climbing 30 minutes. Polizi sensing our impatience and frustration, paused, took in the mountain air and then slowly looked back at us and uttered two words in Swahili - “Pole, Pole”. The confused look on our faces must have said it all. …………“Slowly, Slowly” he repeated in English. “This is all you need to know to make it to the top of the mountain,” he continued. We thought he was crazy, but Polizi knew where he was going and we didn’t so he was in charge.

Up to that moment in my life, there had never been a doubt about the goal of any challenge, contest or obstacle that I faced. I had one strategy and it didn’t matter what the situation was or what it called for. I was going to tackle it by being the fastest, working the hardest or finishing first. What I began to realize as we slowly made our way up this colossal mountain was that I needed to adapt. I was learning on this journey that serving journey's needs far outweighs serving any of my own personal goal. Let me explain this better. As we climbed Kilimanjaro, I settled into a pace that allowed me to survive my environment of tough terrain and impressive altitude instead of choosing a pace that served solely me—one that typically meant reaching the checkpoints first, having the fastest time, or beating that other athletic 30-something woman that started out at the same time as me! I was learning that my usual full-steam ahead approach was not going to work. On the mountain, slow and steady, POLE, POLE was the way to go.

I saw my success with this after the first night on the mountain. I had just devoured what was to become our staple on the trip—black bean soup and a hard-boiled egg… when Andrew and I were joined by a group of College students eager and ready to conquer Kili. I could hear them talking, or in this case telling, their Guide that the pace needed to quicken, that they needed to get to the next check point in better time and that they thought that the pace that was being set didn’t necessarily align with their fitness level.

I remember questioning OUR pace—why were we going so slow? I had been training for a ‘wedding’ –I was fitting into that dress! I had just run a marathon the month before and I was in quite possibly the best shape of my life---so why wasn’t I pushing myself more?? But, I also remembered that I didn’t know a thing about mountain climbing, about Africa, about arctic tundra, about altitude…I was clueless! And therefore, I was trusting my Guide—trusting the process.

The College group headed out at the same time as us the next morning. They quickly upped the pace as they had instructed their Guide to do the previous night. We trekked along behind them taking it slow--POLE, POLE—and made our way through the next stage of the climb. It took us 5 hours to climb 2.5 miles. Yep, picture a tortoise on crutches, that’s how slow we were going! And, when we arrived at the next camp, we were absolutely knackered…exhausted! We had enough energy to eat, prep for the next day and then we were off to bed.

The College group, although leading at the beginning, arrived behind us. It took them 7 hours. 1 hour to go 1 mile and 6 hours to go the remaining 1.5 miles. You can see where this is going. In the end, the College group never summited. They turned back after Day 3 due to exhaustion and a combination of injuries and altitude sickness. They climbed too fast and they missed out on prize---making it to the top.

We slowly plodded on toward Kibo Hut—the last camp site before the glacier summit. Kibo hut stands 15,429 feet above sea level, making it only a few meters below Everest’s base camp. One can only imagine what a beast Everest truly is if the summit of Kilimanjaro is at essentially the same altitude as Everest’s basecamp. We’ll save that one for when we renew our wedding vows!

We arrived at 4pm, had dinner and then rested as we would summit at midnight that same day. At this point, the altitude had really begun to take its toll on us. I struggled with headaches while Andrew had a hard time holding down food. Just to give you an example of the effects that altitude can have on someone at this height - on an average day, my resting heart is in the mid-50’s (50 beats per minute)—but, at this extreme altitude, my resting heart rate (lying down in a cot, not moving) was right around 100 beats per minute.

We slept uncomfortably for about 5 hours before we awoke to prep for our summit. Our light pants and cotton shirts were swapped out for winter coats, thermal pants, gloves, hats and head lamps as the temperature at the top of Kilimanjaro at night can drop to as low as -20F. We were cold, exhausted, hungry and we only had 982m left to climb. We had less than 2/3 of a mile to go but it would take us almost 6 hours. This remarkably difficult final accent was straight up and required us to switch back well over 30 times as we slowly, slowly made our way up the mountain..

We arrived atop the Kilimanjaro Ice Cap, at Gilman’s Point, just before 5am. Truth be told, we were delirious. I had used up every shred of mental toughness and I was an emotional mess, but we weren’t done. We still had to trek around the volcanic cone at the top of the mountain to reach Uhuru Peak--the summit. We slowly walked along narrow and rocky trails overlooking 300 foot drops into the mouth of the cone, and I was extremely thankful the sun had not yet risen as there was no way I would have had the guts to take on that trail in the daylight. At 6am, just as the sun began to crest the horizon, we summited Mount Kilimanjaro. The view that emerged before us was the most unbelievable sight I have ever seen. We were standing on the rooftop of Africa and it felt as though I could reach out and grab the sun.

While I may have tried to make it sound pretty impressive, climbing Kilimanjaro doesn’t take any extreme mountain climbing skill or expertise. People of all ages and sizes can and do summit the mountain. In fact, about 25,000 people attempt the feat each year. But not all of them make it. In fact, only 27% of the climbers who attempt a 5 day summit reach the peak. For us, our success wasn’t on account of our ability, our speed or our strength. Quite the opposite. We were able to summit Kilimanjaro because of Polizi’s advice “POLE, POLE”. We trusted him and we trusted the process to take it slowly, one step at a time.

Summiting Mount Kilimanjaro didn’t come with a trophy or a title, and we certainly didn’t set any records. Instead it was a personal accomplishment that I have been extremely proud of. It was an accomplishment that I achieved with my husband on the eve of our marriage and it would help us through those future hard-times to know that if we could climb a mountain together, we could do anything.

So why not consider truly challenging yourself to dream big, to try something outside of your comfort zone--to not worry so much about FASTEST, FITTEST, FIRST….to take on a challenge that will give you the opportunity to mindfully change your approach in order to find success ….because maybe, just maybe, accomplishing something using new methods will be one of your most fulfilling and most memorable experiences of your life.